This, My Nemesis
by Ankhutenshi
Summary: With the game ended, what spoils for this victor, save confusion? Ura-Ura POV. Originally an entry for Chibizoo's contest.
1. I

**This, My Nemesis**

By: Ankhutenshi

            How interesting you are, laying like that.

            Kind of... what's the word ? Haphazardly, as though you were thrown too carelessly and no one bothered to pick you up again, like a discarded toy. Or a doll ! Is that what you are, a discarded, broken doll ?

            You must be a doll. You have glass eyes, just like a doll. Glass eyes that stare up at the ceiling, at me, at everything and nothing and don't blink. Have you forgotten how to blink, little doll ?

            No.

            No, not a doll...

            I know that.

            It's only... you seem to very, very still right now. Unbelievably still ! Before, you were always so damned vibrant and now... now...

            Well, what do I care, anyway ?! Such a hateful little nemesis you were ! And now you're gone and my problems with you are done and finished and forgotten because you mean nothing to me ! 

            Nemesis. Enemy. Foe. Rival.

            Hateful creature, spiteful.

            ... You're so horribly still.

            But... this is what I wanted, isn't it ? To watch you fall, watch as everything came to a halt, watched the tears well up in the eyes of your other while my own stayed dry and sharp ?

            I know that if I nudge you now, you won't move. But that still doesn't stop me from morbidly prodding you with a toe. You shift subtlety with the action -- I don't apply much force but you're light -- but it's hardly of your own volition. 

            ... Stop staring at me.

            Enemy ! Nemesis.

            Spirit. Kindred...

            I hate you, I loathe you, seeing you like this, you little glassy-eyed doll, it brings me nothing but joy and I hope that wherever you are, if you know nothing else, you know that single thought, that you are gone and I remain. My triumph.

            I won.

            I move away and watch you from a distance. A changed perspective. You still don't move and I'm not surprised. You look like a puppet with cut strings, dropped and abandoned. I wonder if that description crossed your mind ?

            You look... tired.

            Stupid doll, you can't be tired. You were never tired before. You were always there and there and enduring and so damned frustratingly eternal !

            .... You look _exhausted_.

            Well, was this your release ? Be glad if it was, it's the only one you'll ever find in this life or the next. It's all you deserve, spiteful little foe. You probably don't even deserve that much, but that's not for me to decide, is it ?

            Eternal and yet I can't help but wonder if you ever wanted to be. I wonder if you could have seen this coming, would you have avoided it ? Given up so that this wouldn't have been all for nothing ?

            Because that's what it ended up as, didn't it ? Being for nothing ! Good for nothing !

            Given up ?

            No. I suppose not. I don't suppose you would have allowed yourself, would you have ?

            This, my nemesis, is what you've brought upon yourself.

            I should have gone by now but I linger. I frown. Why do I not leave ? I shall leave you here, alone as you have always truly been, as you shall be forever damned to be !

            ... I remain.

            This frustrates me.

            Peculiar.

            You're as still as death, my glass-eyed nemesis. Are you cold ? You do not look it but then, perhaps I simply cannot tell. I would kneel and test my theory but you seem so still, that disturbing you seems to out-of-place.

            ... Not that I care.

            ... Why am I kneeling ?

            You _are_ cold. I was right; I could simply not tell. Even now your mask is firmly in place. I watch you carefully from this new vantage point, though I wish you would stop staring up at me. 

            And you are so very, very silent. Where are your names for me, now ? Your insults and degradations ? It is so strange to hear you say nothing in my presence. 

            ... There is a strangeness in me. It... I cannot identify it. It settles in my stomach. It's cold. The coldness spreads.

            What have you done, hateful foe ? Did you taint me somehow, even now ? Like a serpent, this cold feeling slithers through me, tightening. What have you done ? 

            You do not answer, and I do not care.

            ... Could this... no.

            Impossible. Inconceivable.

            Could this... feeling be of my own creation ?

_            Ridiculous_ ! I don't even know what taint you've spread to me and I am beginning to wonder if is of me !

            Impossibly still, staring at me without seeing me, eyes that will no longer see anything. Stop staring at me. Stop staring !

            My hand connects before I register it. Startled, I pull back, well out of range. Whatever prompted me to do such a foolish thing as that ?!

            You still are motionless.

            I struck you hard, yet no redness rises to the surface as such a blow should produce. I find that this thought causes the taint-serpent to coil more tightly, causes it to constrict maliciously.

            I shall go and leave you here, as you deserve. I have lingered too long in your unwanted company as it is. I am leaving, and I am leaving now !

            ... I remain !

_            Why _?!

            Is this some damned riddle I have to figure out ? Some requirement I must fill, some task I must complete before you will release me from this strange feeling and let me leave !?

            I don't want to play your stupid game, my dead enemy !

            My... 

            Yes. You are, aren't you ?

            I have known this. Since it happened, I have known this. I have known this for as long as you have stared at nothing, for as long as you have grown cold laying there, for as long as I have watched you, I have known.

            It is not a revelation to me.

            I pull away. I shall truly leave this time. The taint-serpent is a feeling I cannot identify, and it goes with me. I leave you there. I can do nothing to or for you now.

            This, my nemesis, you have brought upon yourself.

            I pause... not linger, but pause. Watch you once more. You do not move. I do not expect you to. You are so very, very still. So frighteningly quiet. This silence unnerves me. Even your name-calling would be a welcome shatterer to this silence.

            If you could, would you be watching me go ?

            ... I have done this to you. Your silence and stillness is of my own doing. I gave you what I felt you deserved for everything, and this is the result. You have fallen and I have won, I remain and you... you have gone.

            Enemy. Foe. Rival. Fallen one.

            One who caused taint !

            This is what you deserve, I have done my place and given it to you. 

            You are so horrifyingly still. Unbearably silent.

            Linger... I will linger and you have already gone. Everything that was you… is now gone. Gone by my own hand.

            This feeling. It coils like a serpent but I think I know now what it is. 

            ... Stop staring at me.

**_            Misery_**. _What have I done ?_

            Stop staring at me, _please_...


	2. II

**Authoress' Notes: **Written for 'nee-san, who said that this was her favourite story.

--

I… came back.

If you could, would you be laughing at me for that ? I think you would. But maybe it's only my imagination, because you're certainly not laughing as I can hear it. Nor have you in quite some time.

Nothing ever seems to change here. And since you're here, you haven't really changed, either.

But that's always been the way, hasn't it ? Unchanging. Even when everything you knew changed, you didn't. Nor, I suppose, did I.

You used to glare at me for saying things like that.

You used to glare a lot.

I saw your Other today.

He has become so far removed from the others, so uncharacteristic, no one knows quite what to do with him… and he looked at me, and…

And I could not meet that look.

_Why ??_

Do you see what you have **_done_** to me ?!

**_Do you see ?!_**

You're happy now, aren't you ? Of all that has happened, you're laughing somewhere, I know you are because I know you, I know what you would do ! So somewhere you're sitting and smirking and laughing at me as I stand here.

That's what I think.

I could almost believe you weren't dead, except…

… Except you're here, where I can see you.

Your eyes are still open.

Have they stared all this time at nothingness ? Is there anything else left for you _to_ stare at ?

Nothing else comes here.

Just… me.

I would hear your remarks to that, if only you would make them.

But you don't.

Can't.

You're just… quiet, now.

If it weren't so morbid, I would almost think to move you, just so you're not exactly the same as you were when I left you here, but somehow I cannot bring myself to get any closer.

Not yet.

I'm not surprised that nothing has disturbed you here. Nothing else would dare come here now, not knowing that I might return to this place. That alone is enough to ensure that nothing here changes, and nothing will be changed.

There is only one thing I would have changed, and nothing here can do that.

Not even me.

Maybe that's for the best -- after all, who am I to regulate the workings of death ?

It's not my place.

It's not that I am lacking in experience. Far from that. Indeed, the mechanics of death have been in my hands for a long, long time. In one way or another.

You used to hate me for that.

**_I_** used to hate _you_ for that.

I guess we were both confident in our own abilities, weren't we ? With good reason, I suppose.

I may never have admitted it, but we were so very similar. I can almost hear you laughing again at that, because we both know that were you not laying here with glass eyes I would have never said such a thing. But we know it to be true.

We were alike, not in method or goal, but in circumstance. After all, who could understand us better than ourselves ?

I have come back, because I remember what has happened here.

That was always our greatest fear, wasn't it ?

To be forgotten ?

We both were, of course.

Already forgotten by history, by time.

But we remembered each other. We knew each other.

In a broken sort of familiarity, we were keeping each other alive.

Alive…

Have I failed, then ?

You are no longer alive.

And already memories are fading – not mine, for like we were supposed to be, they are eternal.

Supposed to be, but…

No longer.

Has it always been this cold here ?

I half expect to see brittle frost, but instead, there is just the cold.

No wonder you look cold; you've been here all this time, eyes open and staring at nothing, unable to feel the cold even though it surrounds you constantly.

You didn't like the cold. Neither do I, for that matter.

Another thing that doesn't change.

Have I been wrong ?

I have been thinking that nothing changes, and yet…

You were not always like this.

Can you remember that ?

When you were not here, and your eyes were not like glass ?

Are you listening ?

You always used to listen. True, you'd scorn and ridicule and show me contempt, but you did listen.

So did I.

Does that make you laugh, too ?

I think it would.

I'd just… rather hear it, than leave it to my empty imaginations.

**Owari.**


End file.
